make a colour circle against the colour line

100 years + 10

100 years + 10 of Women’s Suffrage this is of course! 100 years old today on the 6th February 2018. 100 years old for the over-30 year-old women and the property owners. So that really means that I, for example, who is merely renting and quite poor,

would still have been disenfranchised! I am old enough, but not a property owner. Hard luck, I would have had til 1928, to get my vote, another 10 years! That’s why the title 100 years plus 10. Or maybe I should say 100 years minus 10, because my centenary anniversary is in 2028, whereas this year marks is 90 years.

Isle of Women

Of course, how old my right to vote is depends on which country I am in. In Germany, women’s centenary of the right to vote is in November of this year, whereas on the Isle of Man – Isle of Women I’d say! –our right to vote is well over a hundred years old. Women received the right to vote in as far back as 1881! Well done to enlightened them!

Marking the Day

To mark the day, I grabbed an old T-shirt of mine, bought a marker (see, I marked the

day!) that lasts on fabric, and wrote Votes for Women on it! After all, I need it for another 10 years until I can mark the centenary of votes for poor women like me, who don’t own property.

Then I left the house and before going to work, I went down to my local suffragette! I mean, I went to see a sculpture of her! She stands outside Finsbury Park station since

2013. I had read that she stands there, but I could never find her, so this time I wanted to find her! Most people don’t seem to notice, nobody I asked, knew about her. The things we don’t see, it’s alarming!

To get to Finsbury Park station from my house takes me through Finsbury Park park! This is always a treat, since it is so full of history right up suffragette street! It’s also been named the People’s Park. Sylvia Pankhurst spoke here in 1916. Throughout the first

world war there were many pacifist gatherings here. This tradition continued later with CND, and antiracist meetings, rallies and festivals. CND lived in the road next door.

Suffragette Appreciation

Back to my local suffragette: Her name is Edith Garrud and she is the one famous for teaching Jiu-Jitsu to her fellow suffragettes, so that they can defend themselves.

The sculpture is in form of a silhouette, as you see on the photo, and, though she is there with two other local heroes, and all of them are outside this busy tube- and train station, they all seem to be easily overlooked. The other local hero in that silhouette-trio is Florence Keene, who founded Manor Park Centre (then North Islington School for Mothers) in 1913! The third local hero to be honoured is Jazz B, co-founder of Soul 2 Soul.

Sisters, and all, next time you pass by Finsbury Park station, look out for your suffragette, and give thanks for your right! And try to find out who your local suffragette is, so that we could all know this just like we know who our local MP is – and then we can make a suffragette-map!

Tacita Dean and Elizabeth Price are good artist suggestions in the LRB article for creating a lasting memorial – interestingly Dean has previously made installations about the invisibility of memorials

ps I’ve remembered it was Susan Hiller’s Monument project I was thinking of … not Tacita Dean but she would still be a good choice.

Good point you make Ursula – It seems to be the general view that women would have had a majority had they been given the same voting rights as men in 1918 due to the loss of men in the War, and this was a factor in setting 30 as the age. Doesn’t explain the property ownership barrier though.